BakeSpace.com Member ForumsWelcome to the BakeSpace.com forums. Please email us at babette@bakespace.com once you have register so that we may quickly activate your forum account. Please provide us with your username so we can find your account. Thank you!

Beaujolais is the "fun" wine on most wine drinker's lists. It's not too heavy, it's very fruity, and it's very approachable even for non drinkers. It's the only red wine that actually benefits from being served slightly chilled (this seems to accentuate the fruitiness and encourages consumption in large quantities). Yet good Beaujolais is still complex enough to hold interest. Best of all, almost all Beaujolais is very inexpensive. These factors combined means Beaujolais helps make the party.

Beaujolais [BOE-zjoh-lay] Nouveau is always released the third Thursday of November, regardless of the start of the harvest.

Geographically, the Beaujolais region lies immediately south of Burgundy proper. Unlike Burgundy, Beaujolais grows the Gamay grape for red wine. Note that the "Gamay Beaujolais" you see occasionally from California is not Gamay, but a high-yield clone of Pinor Noir. The real Gamay is technically Gamay Noir a Jus Blanc.

The wine itself is made via a process called carbonic maceration, also called whole berry fermentation. This technique preserves the fresh, fruity quality of the wine, without extracting bitter tannins from the grape skins.This enables winemakers to extract the juice with an absolute minimum of tannin; it is this lack of tannin that makes Beaujolais so easy to drink.

French law requires that all Beaujolais grapes be picked by hand. Beaujolais and Champagne are the only two regions subject to this quaint requirement.

Fun fact alert #1: Every year, about a week before Thanksgiving, a strange thing happens in the wine world. The winemakers of Beaujolais are ready to release the newest vintage, and at the stroke of midnight, the race is off to see who can get the wine to Paris and the rest of the world first. Restaurants celebrate the arrival of the new wine, festivals are held, and terrible hangovers are had. By law, the Beaujolais producers cannot start selling until midnight on the third Thursday of November, to ensure a more level playing field for this madness.

What is the reason for this absurd silliness? It's an odd tradition that started the way traditions do - that is, nobody remembers. But it's a good excuse to throw parties to celebrate the arrival of the new Beaujolais - Beaujolais Nouveau. Sometime in the latter half of the twentieth century, famous Beaujolais producer Georges Duboeuf thought that the rest of the world should be included in this absurdity, and mostly through his aggressive marketing, the release of the Nouveau is now celebrated by wine drinkers worldwide.

Fun fact alert #2: The region of Beaujolais is 34 miles long from north to south and 7 to 9 miles wide. There are nearly 4,000 grape growers who make their living in this picturesque region just north of France's third largest city, Lyon.

Okay...sorry to be so long winded...er, ah...fingered...but I just thought it was interesting

You know the drill (or maybe not...):
Name:
Region:
Price:
Year:
PHOTO of bottle
Short intro from the wine maker about the wine:
Review:
Would you buy again?:
Wine Pairing Ideas/Recipes:

I've never heard of this one before, which is always fun. But fortunately my new apartment is near a fancy pants wine/beer/cheese shop. So they should have it. At least they better. If they know whats good for them. _________________Cooking Stuff

I'm cracking up at the "encourages consumption in large quantities" comment!!! now THATS my kind of wine! I'm gonna make a special trip to Bevmo tomorrow._________________Danielle
"Sometimes your knight in shining armor is just a re-tard in tin foil"

Cookbook Cafe is a do-it-yourself digital publishing platform that enables anyone to create, market and sell their very own cookbook to the world for profit or fundraising.With our easy-to-use cookbook builder, you can publish your own beautifully interactive cookbook as both a Web-based eBook and iPad App. The builder also makes it easy to crowdsource recipes and include content from family members, friends and co-workers -- whether they're in the next room or halfway around the globe.